


Smudged Glasses

by shinguji



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Ants, Bittersweet, Butterflies, First Kiss, I just really like bugs okay, M/M, Oma Kokichi Being Oma Kokichi, and being awful with emotions, kinda hurt/comfort, like literally everything else I write :’)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25854889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinguji/pseuds/shinguji
Summary: Gonta didn’t want to trust Kokichi, but it was hard for him not to. Just... why couldn’t he just be genuine for once?
Relationships: Gokuhara Gonta/Oma Kokichi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 139





	Smudged Glasses

**Author's Note:**

> As always, we are starved of Ougoku content, so of course I came in with the Treat-typical bittersweet emotions stuff like always :’) Kokichi is... slightly mean in this fic (maybe more than usual, maybe not... I’m not really sure), but only because he’s absolutely terrible with processing his own emotions. Read the tags just to be safe and enjoy :) <3

“Kokichi?” Gonta asked carefully, watching the Anna’s eighty-eight butterfly that was perched on his index finger. He ran his eyes along the black rings on its white wings, trying to calm himself down—Gonta loved all bugs, of course, but butterflies always helped relax him. “Can Gonta ask something?”

Kokichi lay on his stomach on the floor of Gonta’s research lab, his legs swaying in the air behind him. His arms were crossed under his chin as he stared intently at one of Gonta’s ant farms. Gonta didn’t  _ want _ to trust Kokichi, who absolutely despised ants, but it was hard for him not to, especially when Kokichi glanced up at him like that, eyes wide with curiosity but squinted with mischievous intent. It was kind of cute. “What’s up?”

“Uhm…” Gonta started, suddenly unsure of how to ask something like this. “Has Kokichi ever kissed someone?”

Kokichi’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he collected himself and started giggling maliciously. “Wow, what a gross question!” he gasped, throwing his hands over his mouth. “Who are you, Miu? Kissing is  _ so  _ inappropriate… so depraved… so repulsive! I thought even  _ you _ knew stuff like that!”

“Oh, is it really?” Gonta asked. He could feel his face going red. “Sorry! Gonta not know! He thought kissing normal for humans! Gonta really sorry for saying something ungentlemanly…”

Kokichi snickered again and sat up, haphazardly picking up the ant formicarium but holding it up in front of his eyes more cautiously than Gonta expected. “I’m kidding, stupid,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “Of course I’ve kissed people! Trust me, I have  _ puh-lenty _ of experience!” he added, pursing his lips and making all kinds of awful, exaggerated, wet noises.

That made something in Gonta’s chest sting: not the fake kissing sounds, but the fact that Kokichi had kissed a lot of other people. Even if Gonta ever got the chance to kiss him, would Kokichi even think it was anything special? Kokichi obviously wasn’t very interested in Gonta as anything more than some kind of henchman—even Gonta knew that, no matter how clueless he was sometimes. “Really?”

“Mhm!” Kokichi confirmed, still staring at the ants in his hands. He looked at them silently for a moment. “Why do you ask? Need some advice from a professional, bugboy? Who you plan on smooching, that butterfly of yours? Eww! Imagine the germs!”

Gonta frowned at the mean comment about bugs, but simply swallowed and tried to ignore it: he was used to those comments from Kokichi anyway. “No, Gonta was just curious…”

“Don’t worry, I was lying anyway!”

“H-Huh?”

“Yeah,” Kokichi sighed, poking at the side of the ant farm and tracing along the lines they dug out with his finger. “I mean, who’d wanna kiss a liar like me?”

Before Gonta had any time to think it through, he blurted out, “Gonta would.”

Kokichi’s eyes widened slightly again before he clenched them shut a little harder than he needed to. He carefully set the formicarium back on the floor. “I hope you’re lying,” he said eventually, his voice deadpan. “I know you don’t like lying, so I hope this is your first.”

“What?” Gonta stammered after a moment. He wasn’t used to Kokichi being so serious. “No! Uhm, Gonta didn’t mean—”

“Man, I’m glad you saved up for that one! It was pretty convincing for a second! I guess you learned from the best, huh? But, you know… even the best lies can’t fool me,” Kokichi said, putting his hands back under his chin. “It’s funny to hear you lie like that. You should do it more often!”

Gonta stared down at the butterfly still perched on the side of his finger. Its patterned wings were spread wide beneath the heat lighting on the ceiling, its thin antennae wiggling slightly. Gonta took a few deep breaths as he watched it, trying to force his breathing to slow, but the air just made its wings flutter, so he gave it a little wave and set it down on the tray of overripe fruit beside him. “Gonta sorry. But… he do his best to be gentleman, so Gonta not lie. Gonta never lie, like Kokichi said.”

“Huh,” Kokichi said tersely, sitting up, crossing his legs, and putting the ant farm in his lap. He took a moment to inhale as he twisted a strand of highlighted hair between his fingertips. “So you didn’t lie because you’re  _ such  _ a proper gentleman, right? But admitting to something so gross seems sorta ungentlemanly, doesn’t it?” Kokichi asked, grinning as if he were about to break out into another giggling fit. He didn’t.

Was it really that gross? Gonta suddenly wished the butterfly would come back so he could look at it again, but he didn’t want to bother it while it was eating. “Gonta really sorry for—”

“No, you’re not,” Kokichi interrupted. His grip tightened slightly on the glass ant farm in his hands, and it made Gonta wince. “If you really felt bad about it, you wouldn’t admit your dumb feelings in the first place, or you’d act like it was a lie, at least.”

Gonta wanted to say something in protest, but beside his eyes, which were frantically trying to blink away tears, his body was completely frozen. 

Kokichi was right. They both knew he was. But god, Gonta really didn’t want it to happen like this. He didn’t want it to happen at all. Even if Kokichi teased him constantly, and slung both insults and praise with no weight behind them, and acted like Gonta was some sort of evil underling; even though Kokichi would never, ever admit it, they were friends.

It had taken them so long to get here, to get Kokichi to sit comfortably in Gonta’s lab and watch ants crawl around without crushing them under his heel. Even if Gonta had stupid, selfish thoughts sometimes, he didn’t want to lose their friendship. It was one of the only ones he’d ever had.

“Aww, don’t cry, big guy! I’m just kidding!” Kokichi said out of the blue, that forced grin stretched back across his face. “It’s not like me to be so serious about this stuff. I gotta stay in character! If you want a kiss from li’l ol’ me, you can have one, you know.”

Gonta narrowed his eyes, effectively blinking out the tears. “But Kokichi not want to—”

“Maybe I do,” Kokichi said, leaning forward just a little bit.

The rational part of Gonta’s mind knew that Kokichi was just teasing him—the teasing would probably be way worse now that Kokichi knew Gonta liked him, assuming he didn’t know before—but he  _ wanted _ Kokichi to be serious about it. He was so difficult to figure out. Why couldn’t he be genuine for once? 

“Uhm—Gonta know he not very smart, and he should probably be able to tell this, but… is Kokichi lying?” Gonta asked, his face hot with embarrassment and confusion. 

“Nope!” Kokichi said, leaning toward Gonta just a bit more and planting his palms onto the floor for balance. He looked like he was trying his best to do it casually, but he still fumbled a bit. “But maybe that’s a lie too. Who knows?”

Gonta could see the eighty-eight butterfly’s wings fluttering in the corner of his vision, little streaks of red among black and white spirals. He leaned down a little awkwardly, just trying to get a good look at Kokichi’s eyes more than anything. They had that usual mischievous sparkle, but there were a lot of other things Gonta didn’t quite understand mixed in. Maybe he never would.

Kokichi stared back up at him. “Your glasses are all smudged,” he said after a moment. He reached up as if to cup Gonta’s cheek, but just dragged a finger across his glasses lens instead, giggling under his breath. 

“Hey—”

“Just messing with you!” Kokichi said a little distractedly, pulling his arm back down and wrapping it protectively around the formicarium in his lap. “Gonta?”

Gonta was biting down  _ hard  _ on the inside of his cheek, trying to keep himself from stuttering. Kokichi’s face was way too close—there was no way he was being genuine about this, right? It all felt too… tender. “Yes?”

Kokichi scooched forward just a tiny bit more and pressed the tip of his nose against Gonta’s, the bridge of his wireframe glasses leaving a thin indent on Kokichi’s forehead. He sighed, his breath tickling Gonta’s face, and begrudgingly pulled another sharp grin, as if he were about to tell another lie. “Y’knooow, you’re not even— _?! _ ”

Gonta didn’t even realize he had closed the gap between them until Kokichi kicked away from him and scrambled to his feet. 

“What the hell,” Kokichi muttered, barely even a question. His face was ever so slightly pink, the fragile ant farm clutched to his chest. “What the hell.”

“G-Gonta is sorry!” Gonta stuttered, his eyes going wide. He tried to stand up too, but his legs felt frozen beneath him. He’d never seen Kokichi look so shocked, so humiliated, so angry. “Gonta should have asked first, and then—”

“You shouldn’t have asked first because you shouldn’t have done that at all! I wasn’t being serious!” Kokichi yelled. He took a shaky breath and cleared his throat, stilling for a moment while he tried to put that facade of his back up. “Seriously, Gonta, I mean, eww. Who knows what kinda dung beetles you kiss with those lips? Nasty!” he teased in a voice hoarser than usual.

Gonta could hardly bear to make eye contact with him anymore. “Gonta… Gonta is very sorry,” he mumbled. “It was ungentlemanly. Gonta should have known Kokichi only joking…”

“Was it worth it?”

“Huh?” Gonta asked, his eyes darting back up to meet Kokichi’s. His expression was dark, but judging by the look in his eyes, he was probably even more confused about his own emotions than Gonta was. “N-No. It wasn’t.”

Kokichi swallowed. “What, you went ahead and snagged my first kiss, and it wasn’t even good enough for you?” he asked a little bit hysterically.

“No! That not what—Gonta just…”

“What?” Kokichi asked, deadpan, despite how tense with rage his body was. He held Gonta’s ant farm haphazardly above the ground, shaking slightly in his hands. 

A part of Gonta wanted to beg him not to throw it, but surely Kokichi was past killing Gonta’s bugs. He hadn’t so much as laid a finger on an insect in months—at least, not in front of Gonta. They were friends, and he knew Gonta was friends with the bugs too. Surely Kokichi knew that doing something like that would silently mark the end of their friendship. He wouldn’t do that.

And yet, something in Kokichi’s blank eyes and trembling hands right then looked like he absolutely would.

He didn’t want to, but he would.

“It not worth making Kokichi feel bad. Gonta never want to make Kokichi mad like this. Never,” Gonta said, trying to swallow back the urge to look away from Kokichi’s stare that felt like it could stab right through him; to reach out to that butterfly from earlier and look at its spiraled wings until his breathing was even again. “Gonta… can’t lose you.”

Kokichi’s chest heaved for a moment as he looked down at the sweaty fingerprints he’d left on the formicarium and the ants inside. They were still crawling around in a panic from all the shaking. Clinging a little too tightly to it, he sank down onto the floor again and set it down silently.

“Kokichi?” Gonta asked eventually, carefully tapping Kokichi’s shoulder. “Uhm… Kokichi—”

“Whew! Gonta, remind me to never do that again,” Kokichi said, right back to grinning from ear to ear. “Or, I mean, just don’t be gross and I won’t have to, but still.  _ Super _ embarrassing. How can you stand being genuine for, like, more than one minute?”

Gonta frowned. “Telling the truth is good! Gentlemen always tell truth!”

“Yuck! Like I’d ever wanna be some kind of self-proclaimed gentleman,” Kokichi said, twirling a strand of purple-tipped hair between his fingertips like his life depended on it. “Hey, Gonta?”

“Yes?”

Kokichi’s face looked a little bit pink again as he looked up at the ceiling. “You’re kind of a bad kisser,” he said, “but we can work on that.”

Gonta wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He wasn’t even sure what to think of that. Maybe Kokichi had hated it; maybe he hadn’t and was just too terrified of his own emotions to be anything but angry. Maybe… maybe it could happen again. All Gonta knew was that the unwittingly sweet tone of Kokichi’s voice made his chest tighten painfully. “Okay,” he agreed slowly. “Okay.”

“So,” Kokichi said, clearing his throat, “what’s up with the creepy swirly butterfly from earlier? It looks like a Swiss roll. Can I eat it?”

“Wh—No!  _ Diaethria anna  _ not for eating!”

Gonta was happy to do this again, to just teach his friend about bugs and sometimes let him hold them (even if he did get a little creeped out by the eighty-eight butterfly crawling around on his finger). Gonta wasn’t sure if Kokichi was just as content, or was just pretending to have dropped the subject, but either way, now that the tension was gone again, Gonta felt bad for bringing it up in the first place. They were happy like this. It had taken them so long to become friends that it felt wrong to ruin it.

Still, that first kiss was so short that Gonta barely got to enjoy it.

And, selfishly, he couldn’t stop hoping that Kokichi didn’t lie about helping him practice. 

But for now, the fingerprints on his glasses and the butterfly crawling between Kokichi and Gonta’s linked pinky fingers was enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The ending might be a little wonky because I’m utterly exhausted, but I hope it still conveyed what I wanted it to. I always appreciate feedback, so if you have any, don’t hesitate! :) <3


End file.
